It's true that the wage gap between West and Poland is still significant, but regarding cost of living, GDP per capita (PPP) in Poland is now around $21 000, while the UK $37 000, it is way closer that it was ten years ago and earlier.

Therefore depending what your qualifications and occupation, if your job is the same that in Poland (etc. plumber, welder, builder, truck driver) then staying overseas seems to make sense, but if you let's say law uni graduate and working in a factory on a wage close to a minimum wage then every year you'll get more and more incentive to get back to Poland as the gap is narrowing.

I spent couple of years in Australia (student visa) and I guess that if Australia opened labour market for all Europeans then that would be hundred of thousands citizens of Western Europe emigrating to AUS(I spoke to many EU backpackers and many would have loved to stay Down Under). It's quite natural for me that people tend to move to places where they can enjoy better quality of life. Therefore many Poles choose West European countries as they can get higher quality of life (especially in economic terms), but that doesn't mean that they have no opportunities in Poland as there are thousands of jobs offered by multinationals in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)- especially abundance of IT jobs. I know that to get these jobs usually you need to speak fluently at least one foreign language, but for Polish graduates these firms are really good options to start their careers. So saying that there are no jobs and no opportunities in Poland is completely wrong in my opinion.

For people with low qualifications there are still jobs in retail ( I read recently that Poland ranks second in Europe in terms of shopping malls area per capita) or another group of jobs available are sales reps (przedstawiciel handlowy). I guess good mechanic won't have to much problems to find a job too and so on...

Summarising, for me outlook for Polish citizens wanting to stay at home or move abroad is actually quite good and there are plenty of choices to be made - whichever suits you...

Your analysis is sounds reasonable but still there are some issues to be clarified especially for those who do not have expertise in this topic:

1. Migration from Poland became prominent issue during the years 2004-8 when a wave of hundreds of thousands of people flooded UK and Ireland. What we know now is that this was aberration of ultraoverheated economies which subsequently collapsed (well, UK has not collapsed like Ireland, by being still on printing money life support). Should have such a coincidence not occured, migration levels would be much smaller as the numbers after 2008 show.

2. Most migrants from Poland come from countryside areas where 25% population lives, mostly on small subsistence farms. They have no prospects there so they are moving out to the cities in Europe. This is excessive labour force which in no way could be employed locally since there is no need for masses of workers without special skills nowadays. There is thus another very positive opportunity from the market economy point: demand and supply of manpower can meet on the EU level.

3. The total amounf of migrants from Poland being on the level of 5-6% of population is well within typical levels. For example for the UK it is 10% and Ireland it is 20%.

4. It is well known that after the initial period migration pressures come down, numerically one can roughly represent this by saying that this happens when GDP/capita achieves about 75% of average EU level and unemployment is withín reasonable levels. This is e.g. the current level of Czechia where the migration rate is low. Poland has now 66% of the EU GDP/capita and should be at the 75% level within the next 5-7 years.

As I already mentioned, communists in the soviet bloc had lost faith in their centralised economy already in the mid-80s, if not much earlier. In fact their elite already had a pretty good understanding of capitalism, or at least their kids did. The so-called "bananowa młodzież" and such like, many of whom received expensive education abroad, e.g. in the USA. And in the second half of the 1980s they were already setting up their own companies in Poland.

Therefore, when communism finally collapsed and radical economic transformation followed (or actually it began slightly earlier, with Wilczek's Law in 1988), they were pretty darn well prepared for it. The problem back then, just like today, lay with the vast majority of ordinary Poles, who weren't. They, ordinary citizens, were the hardest hit.

There was nothing wrong with Wilczek's Law, but the acts of the Polish Sejm (parliament) of the early 1990s were socially disastrous. Sadly, they were passed under the auspices of "Solidarity" governments - Solidarity activists who knew absolutely nothing about economics, but apparently stopped caring when the pay cheques (or perhaps also other inducements) became effective. When in the early 1990s Leszek Balcerowicz closed all the state farms, even official unemployment shot up to around 13-14%. The worrying thing is, it has remained at this level for the past two decades. Why?

After over 40 years of communist rule (preceded by a world war), the country's industry naturally had to be restructured. However, in Poland the restructuring was by and large grossly irresponsible. In many cases factories and other plants were simply closed, others were restructured and then sold, more often than not to foreign owners. Today well over 90% of Poland's banks are foreign owned; well over 90% of the local press is German owned!

In short what we have been experiencing for the last twenty years is neocolonialism. And joining the EU has only changed the situation insofar as millions of Poles have now emigrated.

If Italy faces an economic downturn, workers in Tychy pay the price. Anyone complaining about the economic transformations was pejoratively labelled a "homo sovieticus". That's quite unfair and untrue. Poles are generally far more enterprising and resilient than the average citizen of the West. And indeed there are also plenty of success stories, people setting up companies that have found a niche. But that's no thanks to the state (e.g. the Roman Kluska story). The current "liberal" government is by far the worst, raising taxes and increasing bureaucracy (the only area where employment has increased).

But if you're unskilled, uneducated and have an aversion to doing hard work, there is still a chance for you to get a comfy job in Poland, in Lower Silesia for instance, in one of the new boards of one of the largest copper and silver producers in the world. All you have to do is join Civic Platform (PO). If there is something like homo sovieticus (just like in countries further East) he/she must exist in PO.

Post post-communist industry was indeed dismantled hastily and irresponsibly, or rather sold for peanuts by corrupt communist apparatchiks. If we'd had a savvy and honest government at that critical juncture we could have upgraded quite a few plants, or benefited from cheap production the way of China. Unfortunately we did not - the communists were anything but honest and the co-opted "Solidarity" guys weren't savvy(we were all rather idealistic about the "democratic world", weren't we -:).
Anyway, that's over and done with, no good rending our garments. I say joining the EU and NATO was worth every inch of the way,no matter what price. We've assessed the costs and the gains, now lets just move on. Hopefully, the younger generation will be less starry eyed and more open eyed about the EU. Not necessarily euroscepic, eurorealistic rather.

One more thing: lets not forget how much we've achieved. Fifty years of Soviet occupation per-procura left the economy literally not metaphorically in shambles. The early 1990s were difficult to a degree unimaginable in "old Europe" (people complaining of the current "crisis" don't know what they're talkin of) Yet in those first years of independence Poland made a gigantic leap - quite on its own, without a penny from the EU. At that time West Germany was pumping millions into former DDR to resuscitate the post-Soviet remains.
Poles are an incredibly active enterprising people, all they need to succeed is a government that would focus on the few things that are really its business (eg. energy independence, reindustralisation)and just lay off citizens who wish to start and run their own business. Less red tape, clear and transparent regulations. Plus it's high time to cease giving foreign companies preferential treatment at the expense of our own.

What younger generation? Poland is apparently facing a democratic crisis and on the plane I recently heard 4- or 5-year-olds practising their English with distinctly better accents than their 30-something parents.

from Gdansk just repeats endless conspiracy theories and urban legends spread by populists and demagogues. No matter what the details (and it even does not make much sense to discuss those details), their implication is: if things would be done our way, paradise in this land was guaranteed. Which is obviously plain absurd, countries demolished mentally and economically by communism need generations to get transformed.

Populist absurdity finds receptive listeners mainly among those who are loosers. This is simple psychological compensation mechanism in which own failures are blamed on the government.

Truth is obviously completely opposite since Poland has made brilliant transition to market economy and is definitely top example among the former communist countries. There is now in Poland fully competitive market within open EU economy. Those who are taking chances within this market are doing very well indeed.
Even loosers got their perfect chance: they can migrate looking for jobs within the EEA where they are offered one of the best wages in the world for their lowly skills. Many took this chance, those who do not can be suspected of being not adaptable to market economy, dinosaurus of collective thinking, i.e. communist mentality.

I'm glad you read through my typo, I did actually mean "demographic crisis", but I also agree with you that it's very much like in the first two lines of our national anthem. I'm sure there'll be enough of us in the future.

On the other hand, come to think of it, the "democratic crisis" might be a much more serious issue. The current government is planning to reintroduce laws depriving political parties from state funding. That's not the Western approach to ensuring democratic checks and balances, it's more like a sure way of letting the guys in power already control the democratic process. Very much like they do in Russia, a country that somehow never seems able to make full use of her vast resources.

from Gdansk - it is outright idiotic to insinuate that laws prohibiting state funding from political parties are not "Western" or "like they do in Russia". For example, Italy is right now moving in this direction. US of course is glaring example of the nonsense you spread. The issue is much more complicated: it is known that generous state funding like it is now in Poland leads to a frozen political system and reduced grassroot activity of citizens. So a kind of compromise must be found between the level of public funding and donations.

So why did the 2006 Sir Hayden Phillips inquiry come to the exact opposite conclusions, i.e. capping private donations and increasing state funding?

I don't think the land of Berlusconi with its long, colourful history of Mafia connections and assassinated judges is the best example to follow. First and foremost state funding is transparent. An essential element if democracy is to work.

It's only the most demagogic forces in Italy (from Berlusconi to Grillo) which are pulling to the abolition of public funding for parties. Berlusconi has always had the means to pay his propaganda by himself (outgunning the means of his publicly funded counterparts), and not only his propaganda (lawyers, his MOPs -not such a big difference, indeed-, false witnesses, corrupted jidges and MOPs of other parties, etc.). THe public funding he received was just a supplement for the same uses. Grillo too has his big money (on another level, of course), and fights against public funding to rally supporters from the most politically illiterate populace (no funding, less state expenses, less taxes, they think. Poor cats...). Regarding USA, the private fundings, together with the "jerrymaldering" and the lobby system (in a nutshell, legalized corruption of the MOPs from the big groups of interests -NRA, big pharma, oilers, wall street, etc.-) is the reason why many seats in the congress belong to the same people from decades, and the decision of the Congress (and of the presidents) almost always favorite the big groups, and not other forces (ecologic groups, etc.) or the common citizens. A country with no public funding of the parties (and no limits to the private "contributions") is bound to be a country not less "feudal" than a gasprom-state (and just the rich persons -or the yesmen of big groups- will be allowed to make politics there). Is this what you want?

Topic of public funding for parties is more complicated than demagogical insinuation from Gdansk. from Gdansk says it is "Russian style" if there is no public funding which is nonsense.

On one hand public funding obviously cuts or undermines links to direct influence of private sponsors to politics.

However, and this is the case in point for Poland, if given generously it cements the political scene which becomes sclerotic, closed to newcomers and contributes to voters apathy. This is in fact what is happening in Poland. Effect of generous funding is seen there in comical process of politicians being converted into media celebrities, they are filling the media to impact voters since they do not need to spent time to collect money /same in Italy/. Thus, significant reduction of public funding sounds very reasonable in Poland.

What is outrageous in the from Gdansk is typical conspiracy theory suggesting the governing party is establishing dictatorship by proposing deep changes to the funding system. While in fact it is opposite: governing party should be interested in keeping the status quo since they get most money and this is very significant money.

Your aggressively disrespectful, counter-factual and insulting style of writing does not really deserve a response, but I must stress that unlike you, I have not insinuated or assumed anything and instead have been careful to base my arguments on well-known and verifiable facts.

For example, it is a well-known and verifiable fact that depriving political parties of public funding has been one of the most regular official postulates of Donald Tusk's Civic Platform Party ever since it it was formed in 2001. And there is now such a bill in the Polish parliament.

The problem with the mainstream media in Poland is also very well known. It has to be stressed that for the last six years they have been quite uncritically pro-government, especially as far as state television is concerned. And that's because it is by and large post-communist, run in succession by members of communist clans, such as the Kraśko family. The two main private stations are not much better, Mariusz Walter's TVN is also deeply rooted in the communist and secret police past. Polsat might be a incy bit better, though its founder was also an agent of the communist secret police. In short, the mainstream media are essentially government propaganda mouthpieces, just like in communist times. The situation improved slightly only very recently with the founding of Telewizja Rebublika in addition to the much attacked Telewizja Trwam. It is only in those two TV stations, with far smaller funds than the aforementioned mainstream three, that members of the opposition are treated seriously. The level of discussion in the mainstream stations resembles your posts - and this indeed puts people off politics.

You make the ridiculous claim that political parties benefiting primarily from private donations would encourage grass roots activity. So far the greatest grass roots demonstrations have been organised: in support of Telewizja Trwam, which the current government had effectively wanted to deny access to digital broadcasting (a petition of over 2.5 million); a trade union demonstration against the arbitrary raising of the retirement age (also a petition of over 2 m) and only last week a petition of Polish parents (over 1 m) against sending their six-year-olds to schools that are quite clearly unprepared for it. It must be stressed that all these petitions were rejected in the Polish parliament, where Civic Platform still has a majority, in the very first reading. Ditto any legislation put forward by the main opposition party. Therefore stating not everything is as it should be with democracy in Poland is hardly a conspiracy theory, it's a statement of pretty obvious fact.

Civic Platform feels it can behave in such a way with impunity because it knows it has the mainstream media on its side. It can also usually rely on the unreformed post-communist law courts. And yes, only Polish grass roots efforts are liable to change the situation.

You say it's complicated. Indeed it is, but please note that in stable Western democracies there are usually only two major camps: Tory or Labour; Democrat or Republican; CSU/CDU or SPD. The problem is not fact that there are only two major political options to vote for, the problem is to make sure that these parties are always answerable to the actual voters. The best way to ensure that is through public funding, not private donations.

from Gdansk what you write are just endless repetitions of the most primitive insinuations, lies, and conspiracy theories which are circulated in Poland by extreme populists and demagogues. They use people with poor minds and/or blinded by sectarian religious propaganda to advance their cause. This is why your tirades have to be countered with strongest condemnations.

Though it is really a waste of time to discuss the details of the paranoia you repeat, let's take your example of TV
Trwam which is major extreme sectarian mouthpiece and no wonder is your flagship case. This TV is a part of a media enterprise with a phony and often suspicious funding, suffice it say the church in Poland is no subject to financial audits. Anyway the infamous TV Trwam applied for digital broadcasting
license without revealing its source of financing. That was totally shameless and vulgar disrespect for the rule of law which they tried to abuse and circumvent by organizing populist movement. In this case however, the authorities were resolute and have not given up to the pressure: only after the TV Trwam submitted application with proper financial
guarantees they were granted the broadcasting license, and promptly for that matter.

Now it is crystal clear you are based on lies, cheating and
brainwashing by extremists targeting people with low IQ and/or blinded by sectarian religion.

The same is with your picture of media landscape in Poland. It is a land of free, live and competitive media driven by the consumer market. You would like to see extreme religious and nationalistic outlets in the mainstream but the problem is of course the market for them is limited to a narrow segment. Extremists are trying to deny this by invoking conspiracy theories about denying them access which is outright laughable. For there is no major market segment for their views and there is no money to be made in this segment. This is the truth and not your conspiracy propaganda.

Regarding the funding of political parties what you say is also tainted by extremism. Pragmatical, liberal view is based on rational thinking considering weak points of the present system. The weak points of two-party system: cementing the political scene and complete elimination of voice of substantial number voters e.g. in the UK 1/3 of voters are
not heard in the parliament. The same is with funding: too generous funding (like it is now in Poland) is not only significant in cementing the scene but even more, it allows politicians to shift to media celebrities status since they do not have to worry about funding and do not need to spent time for it.

As one can see everything you write is based on nonsense often bordering on absurd and paranoia. This is typical for extremists which hate unbiased rational thinking and it should be made cleat to the international audience.

"endless repetitions of the most primitive insinuations, lies, and conspiracy theories which are circulated in Poland by extreme populists and demagogues. They use people with poor minds and/or blinded by sectarian religious propaganda to advance their cause."

You copy and paste these words in almost everyone of your numerous posts, regardless of topic. That, BTW, is what one could call a tirade.

If you wish to call a TV station that has been broadcasting with papal approval for the last decade "sectarian", you probably consider the entire Catholic Church to be a "sect". If that's what you think, so be it, but it's hardly an objective of rational opinion.

I'd only add if the government linked authority finally concedes digital broadcasting only after a petition of 2.7 million, street protests of hundreds of thousands of people in every major Polish city and town, after the issue was raised internationally, from left to right, often by people who have actually no sympathy for the Catholic agenda, then I wouldn't call this concession exactly "prompt". And even here there is an important detail in that TV Trwam has been paying large sums of of money for this "privilege" since spring though it has as yet not physically been granted it. i.e. it's paying for a service that is not provided. So much for the rule of law.

I'd also make a distinction between FPTP voting and public funding, two quite distinct issues. But I'm sure you won't. Instead most likely only copy and paste more "arguments" of the "low IQ, brainwashed, sectarian, populist, demagogic, conspiracy theory, insinuation, tirade" sort, so what's the point?

from Gdansk: your writing represents typical style of religious extremism: TV Trwam folks were not showing financing so they were denied broadcasting license. When they at least included financial guarantees they got the license promptly. But in your brainwashed view they have "won" the license after protests, which is blatant lie - they it got after they made their application according to the law. Now you say they can't start broadcasting - they can't since they were late by trying to trick the authorities.

In any case, this TV station is a margin addressing extreme segment nd presenting completely distorted view of reality. This is evident from their position e.g. on the recent wave of absolutely horrific pedofile scandals in the church. They reacted typically by denial and by conspiracy theory about alien enemies mounting campaing againste the church. Anybody who has even a bit of rational thinking left in the brain could see the dirty games played by these manipulators.

I obviously have no understanding of concepts such as register or tone in language, and that is why you blithely accuse others of having a "primitive" or "religiously extremist" style of writing.

You also have a very subjective perception of the truth since you seem to think that a foundation, Lux Veritatis, which has been broadcasting since 2003 and last year received a concession to broadcast for yet another ten years, could possibly have anything seriously wrong with its finances?! Let's say, for argument's sake, it did. Wouldn't that be a case for the tax office, state prosecution or police? Hardly an issue for government cronies (the National Broadcasting Council known as KRRiT) who grant digital broadcasting concessions to newly formed companies with no broadcasting experience. Ones that are granted generous long-term start-up capital loans by none other than KRRiT! And don't say that's a "conspiracy theory", it's an officially documented and generally known fact.

And then you mention a "recent wave of absolutely horrific pedofile scandals in the church". What makes you think it's a "recent wave"? A rational person would assume such sex crimes always existed. A rational person would know that such sex crimes were regularly committed in institutions such as the BBC, Hollywood or the German Green Party on a more intense scale. The difference is the latter have been more determined to cover such crimes up. By comparison at least the Church is reluctantly but nevertheless making official statements and taking measures. And your outrage stems from TVN in recent months, not TV Trwam, which you obviously never watch and therefore are blissfully unaware of the fact that it is generally preoccupied with other issues.

But here I am again, talking to you. No, should know better. I know it's wrong to feed you.

from Gdansk: First one should emphasize that, in typical fashion for sectarian way of discussing, you constantly change the topics once it is shown your arguments are wrong. This thread was going to be about migration but you hijacked it in the direction of your religious fervor. Which indicates obsessive-compulsory drive typical for the extremists. Now you repeat in the same style about the broadcasting license "You also have a very subjective perception of the truth since you seem to think that a foundation, Lux Veritatis, which has been broadcasting since 2003 and last year received a concession to broadcast for yet another ten years, could possibly have anything seriously wrong with its finances?!". This is yet another manipulation. The talk is about the TV Trwam license for which this foundation applied but provided only phony source of funding for the broadcasting fee, without any financial guarantees. Only after their application was corrected as required by law they got their licenses Hidden intention of these cheaters was of course to get the license without financially binding obligations and then stop paying fees on the pretext of it being too high. Next they would organize protests in defence of their broadcast and finally claiming huge victory for brodacasting for free "in the name of the nation". But that will not be possible now and it is a very good sign that authorities managed to prevent this trick.

For, in the case of the extremal radio station they run, its financing is completely opaque, it is said it comes from donations but there is no way to check this. It is known however from the case of recovering of the church properties that there is lots of experts there in balck economy.

About the pedofile scandals in the church what you say indicates complete brainwash. Indeed from watching TV Trwam you get the impression nothing happened which obviously is scandalous. Mainstream media which are market-oriented must compete for listeners and are obliged to satisfy their interests. Mouthpieces with phony financing can continue with its propaganda.

In any case, your style has led to the manipulation of moving this thread out from its topic of migration. This does not make sense, you can tell what you have to say in the topic or stop.

Nope, it you who is hijacking civilised discussion with your own peculiar brand religious fervour, steering it away from the topic of the article, continued emigration, and away from the most obvious culprit, the government that has been in office for the last six years, to what could be objectively termed as one of the most spectacular grass-roots success stories.

You should be considering relevant issues, such as, the fact that this government has raised, not lowered, taxes; that it has arbitrarily raised the retirement age without providing any feasible job opportunities for the over-fifties, but even more tragically for the young and especially for university graduates. You should be terrified by the state of public finances, rapidly rising public debt, quite unrealistic and therefore continually modified state budgets, and at the same time profligacy in money squandered on preposterously expensive office furniture, unjustified travel to swanky hotels in exotic locations, alcohol, cigars, designer suites and designer dresses for the wives as well, nightclubs, strip clubs, regular plane trips for 4-day "weekends" in Sopot, quite pointless government propaganda and public awareness commercials, etc.

And that's just what we know from official public records. There's also more than enough evidence of quite unofficial and illegal practices such as nepotism, jobs created in the boards of Poland's most important industries especially for government cronies, the recent Civic Platform tapes from Lower Silesia (revealed thanks to party in-fighting). For the last six years we've had countless political and financial scandals, e.g. Afera Hazardowa (legislation regarding gambling drafted for the express benefit of a small-time gangster and government crony, and a top job in the national lottery for his daughter). The even bigger shipyard scandal, so was there really a buyer from Qatar? If not, why the PM's photograph with the sheiks? Doesn't the plight of the shipbuilding industry have anything to do with continued emigration?

And why are all the trade unions, including OPZZ on the Left and Solidarity on the right now so strongly united in their anger against the current government, against junk contracts (umowy śmieciowe), isn't that relevant? Why are private businesses angry at the government for excessive bureaucracy and taxation, isn't that relevant? Why is there such a rapidly widening disparity in pay, isn't that relevant? And if it is, whose fault is it?

You should also take a closer look at what pensions (for Polish taxpayers' money) the vast numbers of retired communist apparatus of terror functionaries, starting with people like Kiszczak and Jaruzelski (who should really be in prison) get. You should try to imagine how much of a strain it is on the budget since the average retired worker gets less than pittance. And that also helps to explain why people emigrate.

We're talking about public finances here. We're talking about how the state is "governed". But it is you who is preoccupied with the finances of a relatively tiny, private foundation. Why? Because unlike Donald Tusk's corrupt and incompetent government it is dynamic and positive. Because against Donald Tusk's wishes it is investing the geothermal industry around Toruń?

from Gdansk: you are a poor victim of your own paranoia. What you write are absurdities, nonsense and lies which have nothing to do with migration. The source of this is clear: you are blinded by religious extremism of one particular virulent catholic sect. Sociology shows that people who get this disease recruit from among loosers. They compensate personal responsibility for their failures by blaming everybody around for whatever including bad weather. While in truth life in Poland is normal without any special problems. Economy is in very good shape relative to others in EUrope. Politics is within typical standards for democracy. Migration level is also nothing to talk about, just normal level for the open European job market.

Obviously, average standard of living is a deal lower than the elite of Europe but it is not so much or not at all anymore lower from those in the bottom ranks of the "West" like Portugal and Greece. Reason for the lower standard of living is low productivity and business drive of people and not the government. Populists are liers when they promise people lots of money. This is vulgar cheating, religious populist in Poland have only one hidden agenda: to impose mandatory religion on every aspect of life. This is essentially no different from the taliban and ajatollahs.

aYFLwMbUnk, even if you were right in your discussion with from Gdansk (and I'm certainly closer to you then him/her on the subject of religion, at least), you absolutely fail in your attempts to communicate what you think.

There are two tribes in Poland, it's obvious you belong to one of them (the 'liberal' one) - but outside of Poland the arguments of the second tribe (the 'right-wing' one) are not taken as false at face value. I understand that saying things like "propaganda", "soviet mentality", "populism" etc are enough to stereotypize the other side, and stop listening to what they have to say - but it works only in Poland, where everybody knows extacly what words are used by one tribe in relation to the other.

L_stan: indeed you are right one should be tempered and this discussion is rather weird. But unfortunately this is hardly possible with the worse kind of extremal fanatics driven by religious urges. One choice is to shut up but then they get field open to spread whatever ridicule. So one has to try to reply them. One finds banging into a wall since rational discussion is not possible, whenever they are shown to be clearly wrong they change topic and continue. There is then only one option left: reminding them about absurdity, lies and brainwashing. This however is rightly sounding bad for the public.

It is not correct to say there are two "tribes" in Poland. The "tribe" you name "liberal" is not a tribe for these are people who have rational way of thinking typical for civilized western discourse. In short they are ready to change their views when confronted with facts. The real tribe in Poland is sizable part of the population which has not come out yet from middle-age doctrinal thinking: there is absolutely no way they can change their viewpoint and facts do not matter for them. There is interesting question why this tribe is so numerous in Poland and so entrenched in their views? The answer is that this is due to a particular combination of religion and history. Catholic religion is obviously known from its dogmatism and imposing thinking from the top, there is no place for critical evaluation of any dogma, one becomes heretic for this. Then there is historical background in which people were suppressed and opressed by aliens for two centuries. That made rigid clinging to their views as their major tool for mental survival. There is no place for rational, fact-based thinking. It is replaced by dogmas and conspiarcy theories. Here from Gdansk is a very goood. One sees constant flow of topics, accusations, conspiracies intended to prove that this tribe is oppressed by powerful forces which have grandiose plan for destroying it. Now, if you say there is no plan and there are no forces they change the topic and start again.

L_stan has thankfully pointed out what I have repeatedly been trying to communicate to you, politely I must stress, that your "style" is overemotional and quite inappropriate.

I'll only add that you do not have the faintest notion of what state taxes and governments are for. I mean even in the most barbaric east there is a tendency to say "good tsar, bad boyars", you take it several furlongs further and say "good government, bad nation"! I think you're in a league of your own with that one. Pity only you make up for your total ignorance with hatred.

@L_stan, although it is frequently repeated by certain media pundits and journalists, the idea of Poland being divided into two tribes is quite false. It is just another one of those propaganda lies effectively stirring up mutual distrust and hatred. In fact the political divide cuts through families, including my own. Nor is it religious. Many of even the most aggressive members of Civic Platform profess to be Roman Catholics, e.g. Stefan Niesiołowski or Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz. Likewise the other side includes agnostics or even atheists, such as the sorely missed Zbigniew Religa.

Finally, I would like to stress that I did not expressed any religious views in this thread. For instance, I have not denied that there is a paedophile problem in the RC Church, but instead have pointed out that it is proportionally a far bigger problem in far smaller institutions, e.g. the British entertainment media as revealed recently by Operation Yewtree.

I certainly did not introduce the subjects of religion or paedophilia to the subject of emigration, but I do associate it with politics and the current government, which in 2007 used this very issue as a major campaign slogan. They promised that the emigrants would return and therefore received a record number of Polish immigrant votes in the UK.

It is not so that all religious people have nothing to do with rational thinking. But in Poland there is sizable part of population which is totally antirational and antilogic for that matter, members of this tribe almost invariably adhere to the sectarian version of religion. The from Gdansk here is typical representative of these folks. Their way of thinking is incoherent - starting from any topic they move to tirades on everything, logic is based on conspiracy theories and they profess utopia of riches waiting for everybody when the conspirators are gone and "people" take power. Since there is no way they can change their mind on any issue even if shown obvious facts, this is endlessly repeating.

While mostly their arguments are primitive and its nonsense is clear, in some topics one needs to be equipped with good background knowledge not to get hooked by populist propaganda. Migration is partially such topic as, for example, these people will never many anything on the positive aspects of migration, which are very significant especially concerning Poland. So if one would be asking from Gdansk to elaborate on those positive aspects of migration there will be nothing but a tirade on the mostly imaginary negatives.

Why elaborate? The freedom to migrate in search of decent employment, or at least employment that provides a far better means of existence than in the local area, is without doubt one of the greatest virtues of the EU, and there aren't that many more I could name.

The problem is not with emigration per se, it is simply a matter of duration and scale in proportion to the native population. If migration is persistently (for many years now) only one way and concerns millions of families as far as Poland is concerned, then it is obviously a problem. Not because TE calls it a "headache", but because the very political party that has been in power for more than six years regarded it to be a very serious problem and promised to do something about it seven years ago. We can objectively say that if it was a problem back then, it must surely be an even greater problem today.

Demographic decline might not be as dire as in Lithuania, but the problem certainly also exists in Poland (used by government officials as an excuse for underinvestment and lay-offs in education, for instance) and emigration is perhaps the most serious contributing factor - no shortage of Polish children in the UK.

As I have said many times before, the causes of mass emigration are essentially political and economic: lack of industrial policy, high taxes, bureaucracy, virtually no work and virtually no welfare. The consequences are also essentially economic and negative: ageing population, declining tax collection, rising public debt, imminent pensions crisis, shockingly low innovation.

And what more can be said, other than the obvious that the current government is quite incapable remedying the negative trend. All the signs now, e.g. the mainstream media leaks and even the actions of the usually politically servile state prosecution, indicate that Civic Platform has at long last reached the stage of in-fighting, mutual hatred and self-destruction.

Therefore I would like to repeat the suggestion of another poster that you should chill out. You're very limited range of political catchphrases "conspiracy theories", "populist propaganda", "religion", "sectarian version" etc, are as irrelevant as always, and now even more inane because outdated. Those text messages were in circulation two or three years ago, now well past their sell-by date.

But of course you won't. You're as likely to chill out as Donald Tusk or Sławomir Nowak, and will instead become even more aggressive. Like, for example, suddenly referring to me in the third person, that I am a typical example of this, that or the other. Therefore, enough is enough, write as much of you boringly aggressive and repetitive garbage as you wish, but please do not be offended if I do not respond.

I am also thinking about leaving Poland. I run local media in one allegedly 120-thousand -inhabitants sized town (in theory only) and when the costs to upgrade only one section of the newspaper reached 300000 PLN (we upgraded only the ancient history section), I realised that it is far too costly to run business in Poland. Costs of workers oversight are immense, there are workers shortages. State-run labour offices do not accept on-line submissions for job offers, and we have spent already tens of thousands of PLN to get workers from other cities to manage the work, and they fail even to submit signed documents needed to get the public subsidy to run the business. Some 30 % of our ex-workers from the local newspaper laready emmigrated. There are no managers available for media jobs,if we find anyone, then the people are already so busy that they do night shifts. We might close very soon. Not because we lack money, but because there are no workers willing to work with our company.

What you write flies in the face of claims by migrants here which are telling us at length there are absolutely no jobs in Poland and especially for those with education in humanities:).

Now you say you even have money, so are you able to pay competitive salaries? Usually people with skills and intellect if they are offered reasonable salaries do not migrate easily to flip burgers or do night shifts in warehouses. Where is the catch here?

In any case, small cities, especially those in less developed regions are not terribly good place to run local media.

This is an interesting debate for an American to read. After college graduation I moved from a small town in the state of Florida to a big city about eight hours away in the neighboring state of Georgia. I face occasional good-natured jokes from my Georgian-born coworkers and neighbors (they mock my non-southern accent, for example) and I often hear stories about the good old days when the big city here was somewhat smaller. But overall it seems very different from the exchange rate juggling, language concerns, and odd bits of racism people face in Europe when they move comparably similar distances.

Sometimes small towns get smaller and big cities get bigger, but I think in general the free movement of people and labor is a good thing.

Language matters though. I believe it would not be very easy for you to move to a place where nobody speaks English. In a distant future we all may be speaking English (or Chinese), but that future is not around the corner yet.

I do not believe there is more racism in Europe than in some other parts of the world. There is a mistrust towards religuous fanatics, but this is not exactly a race issue.

Remember EUrope is a patchwork tribes which were mostly fighting and hating each other for millenia. Language barrier is significant and stereotypes are well-alive in parts of populations. This is reflected to sensitivity to populist and demagogues which are mushrooming every time economies are not booming: foreigners are easy scapegoats.

Since we are on the issue of emigration, i would like to adress also the issue as to why these people are not going back to Poland. Well, if you ever ask somebody why he doesnt want to go back, normally he will say "because i have nothing to go back TO" The problem however is that it is not true. The real reason why people are not going back is not because they have nothing to go back TO but rather because they have nothing to go back WITH.

In the 70's or 80's or even early 90's you could go to a western country and earn 50-60 times as much as you would earn in Poland. So people were going west, spending 7-8 years there saving big money and going back and opening up hotels, restaurant, guest houses etc.. And they were clever too investing in Places like Zakopane or Sopot. Now they are all rich.

But if you emigrate now, youll be lucky if you earn 3 times as much as in Poland but then you have to take into account the massivly higher cost of living there (and plz dont tell me the cost of living is the same, thats rubbish - you try to survive in Paris for 1600 PLN a month - you'll starve to death) So the wages are relatively low, the cost of living is high and in many cases there is no job stability. The result is people cannot save any big money, or if they do save it will not be worth very much in Poland. So they have nothing to go back WITH.

Hence the immigrants you see now are not going back! Its not they have nothing to go back TO, as they claim, but because they have nothing to go back WITH - because the west is not rich anymore! Soon these people will not be able to afford to even go on holiday to Poland, not to mention actually investing there.

Why so angry at people that prosper abroad ? :) After living in the west you accumulate money and capital that is much more than you could gather in Poland. Only after 2 years here I saved more money then my parents in their whole life.Why you probably couldn't buy a house after 5 years, you could probably buy it after 10 if you save hard enough. But what for? Poland doesn't offer jobs at all, education and infrastructure is at lower level. Corruption and nepotism rule. So why should anyone want to return to corruption, unemployment and ruined roads?

As to wages and prices-wages are higher in the West, prices are usually lower when you compare it to wages(and even if you use direct exchange, for example Germany has cheaper food and other products even if you just convert it to zloty and compare similar price in Poland).
There is absolutely no reason to return to Poland.

@PiotrAnonim: your posts make impression of psychological problems. This potentially might be related to migration as it is for some people quite heavy burden due to the alien social environment. Your emphasis on money is pointing in this direction but money can not substitue for the social environment which for some are important. What you write is indicative of this since it looks like searching for psychological compensation. From distorted psychology, absurd and nonsense emerges like "Poland doesn't offer jobs at all" - this is outright crazy. Then there are those comparisons with the "West" - which West do you have exactly in mind? Are e.g. Portugal, Spain and Greece still the West?

Then this "corruption and nepotism rules" - this is statement typical for people in Poland who were unsuccessfully applying for jobs. Extends also to foreign companies operating in Poland which is grotesque.

Next is "ruined roads". Roads actually improved significantly, at least those outside rural areas so this is another sign of distorted view.

Unemployment level is not very much different from other EU, and in the case of busted countries it is much lower.

Regarding salaries and wages they are obviously lower in Poland. But this is generally not so critical nowadays which one can see from migration levels which nothing special. Majority of those who migrate are from rural areas.

In the end, free mobility of workforce is one of the pillars of EU economy. It is very beneficial for everybody. Mobility is also normal in developed societies, this is why, for example, UK has quite high emigration levels. So you have found your fine place to live, others have found their fine places and even in Poland. But by generalizing too much you only prove being out of touch with reality.

Every reason if you think long term. After many years abroad we decided to go back and honestly haven't regretted it once. I'm fond of England, but can't help feeling extremely glad our children had a chance to grow up here, not there. When all's said and done nothing beats feeling at home.Contrary to what many young emigrants imagine, roots matter - tremendously.
Not true one can't get a job without connections, but yes, nepotism is definitely an issue. One of the serious issues on the homefront we must deal with - such as ensuring energy independence, re-industrialization and greater ease of doing business, to name just a few. No reason at all why this shouldn't be done - if we stick it and press for change. Fortunately, there's always been enough people who cared about Poland sufficiently to make sure it lived on - there's still enough to make sure it moves on.
Those who say it's dead are of course free to buy a one way ticket.

One thing worth to mention is that economically Poland is a country with big distransparencies. First, there is Warsaw with a very good job market (especially in IT and finance). There are also other bigger cities, like Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan or Krakow with average job markets, although the situation is improving thanks to BPOs coming to the cities. Ok, that is not the most ambitious job but rather well-paid and better than being unemployed. But there are also rural areas where situation is bad - if you are well-educated you should not look for a job there. I have many friends from university who live in Warsaw and are rather satisfied with their job and do not have any intention to move abroad.
Myself I am currently living in Germany and working as IT analyst. My motivation to move was mainly to gain international experience and see how it is to live in another country.
In my opinion if you are well-educated you will find good job in Warsaw (not in Poland, in Warsaw) with salary comparable to Western one (in terms of comparison to cost of living, of course Polish salaries are lower but life is less expensive). Also in a long term it is always easier to work and live in your country. Also being East European and working in Western Europe you will often have to cope with stereotypes because for many people as a Pole/Czech/Hungarian you will only be able to work as cleaning lady or on construction site.
That is why I believe many well-educated people would like to come back (including me, maybe not tomorrow but in some time) but what really makes difference is general quality of life, that is not related to your salary, so level of infrastructure, medical services and so on. That is actually needed in Poland to attact brains to come back.

What you say is right concerning people with advanced skills like IT. Current migration from Poland resembles movements from the countryside to the cities which happened earlier in developed countried during industrialization. Poland is backward in this respect. If one looks into biggest cities they are relatively small comparing to the size of the population. For example Warsaw with its 2 mln people is like mini-capital if one thinks 10-20% population live in many european capitals. The process of moving out from rural areas is thus inevitable. But thanks to the EU people have wide opportunities and they jump into some of the best compensations in the world for the work they do. This is really phenomenal advance.

For how long have you been living in Germany?
I happen to work in a field which employed Eastern Europeans before these countries joined the EU and I also happened to work in other European countries than Holland as well. I'd tell you the following: you will never go back to Poland if you live in Germany 5 years or so, due to the same dynamic I see in Holland as well as in other Western countries:
1. In the beginning, Eastern Europeans come for higher wages. Most of them are beter educated and work harder than the local population. (Be it Holland, Italy or UK).
2. Within 5-7 years they learn the language, integrate and gain the appreciation they deserve. At this point - being integrated - they have different expectations from a society than in the beginning.
3. After 7 years in Western Europe, you don't care only about your wage but also about how the city you live in looks like, weather the place you live in is corrupted or not, weather the air is clean, weather you can trust the food you buy, weather the trains are safe and ride on time, etc.
This being said, I think it's good for Western Europe that the labour markets enlarges,(unlike many of my fellow citizens). The Eastern governments will do nothing to keep people from emigrating. Their own children dream of studying or working abroad!

I cannot agree with your comment about the size of Polish cities. When I check the top of the list from Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_of_the_European_Union_by_pop...) it applies only to London and UK. Berlin with let's say 4 mln is 5% of the population of Germany, Amsterdam with 0,8 mln also 5% of Dutch population. So just as Warsaw.
Please also notice that Poland has 10 cities > 0,3 mln. Now compare it again to Germany - 20 cities > 0,3 mln with more or less twice as big population as Poland. That matches exactly. Again.
What is more I don't understand why capital should be big. In Latin America capitals are often enormous and I cannot see any positive aspect of that.
In my opinion it is even better if there are more economical centres and not everything concentrates in the capital - see Germany or Switzerland. That is actually caused by historical factors and authonomy of bundeslands/cantors in the past and present but would be a "nice to have" for different countries in Europe because it enables sustainable development of a country.

What you say is missing reality. Huge majority of migrants from Eastern Europe are peasants able to do jobs at the bottom of the ladder for minimum salary. They don't give a damn about clean air or city outlooks.

Notice also that migration from Eastern Europe got its peak in 2004-8 due to unusual circumstances and is very moderate now. Much bigger issue emerging now is migration from busted countries like Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and also from Italy. Now it is not East moving West but South moving North!

I guess it depends in what kind of business one works. As I wrote, I have been working with high educated Eastern Europeans since 2002. I don't know what a peasant means in your perception. These were hard working, well-educated people. I couldn't care less where they were born, I am talking about the persons I dealt with not about what their birthplace is.
I agree that they don't give a damn about "luxury issues"in the West, IN THE BEGINNING. After a number of years they do change perspective, at least- again - the people I dealt with.
The topic of the article is migration from Eastern Europe. Of course I am aware of the number of new pizzeria and gelateria in the city I live (Italian migrants as in the '80's) but this is not the topic here.
My experience is that the migrants from the South will loose the competition with Eastern Europeans on the labour market. While eastern Europeans work hard, are educated and dependable, those from the South (mostly Italian I dealt with) are less hard working, speak foreign languages poorely and have difficulties adapting. While Poles ask you ten times what and how they need to do beter, Italians explain you (while working abroad) how great their way of living is and that I need to adapt (in my own country) to THEIR mentality.

Wages in Poland are lowest in EU. Who says that: "The wage gap between Poland and Western Europe is steadily narrowing" is sick and he should't work in Warsaw University’s Centre for Migration Research.Prices of rent a room and other basic thinks you need to buy every day are very high. And 1600 brutto is about 1180 netto so you can imagine how it looks. You can save about 100 zl maybe or even nothing.Why nobody wants to work in Poland? 1600 brutto is an answer!

"1600 is MINIMUM wage which is earned by 5% of population"
Nice try. Minimum wage is earned by more than 5% of population and a lot more earn BELOW minimum wage. That's right. Why? Because if you work on "thrash contract"(umowa smieciowa in Polish) minimum wage doesn't apply. And huge number of Poles work on thrash contracts(not to mention other types of employment which don't require minimum wage).

Average salary in Poland as of 2013 is 3770 zl. Not a whole lot in places like Warsaw or Kraków, but enough for a modest but comfortable lifestyle.

Money is not the only determining fact when it comes to quality of life, of course. One major complaint I hear from Poles returning from abroad is poor middle management. Whereas in the West, talent and initiative are appreciated, here far too often managers see them as reasons to take you down a couple notches.

The low wages are not the issue - it is the cost of living which is artificially inflated by Brussel's policies aimed at maintaining Old EU food prices. Eurocrats put quotas on food production and pay farmers bribes-subsidies to be idle rather than productive.
If for an hourly wage you could buy as many eggs in Poland as in UK, the satisfaction with quality of life would be a lot higher for people with jobs, and migration figures lower.

Approximately 100 000 people emigrate from Poland every year, that might seem high but approx 300 000 people emigrate from the UK every year. So why are we discussing Polish emigration to Europe when there is a tidal wave three times that size heading out of the UK?

And worst of all, the majority of Polish emigrants are low skilled people who either have no job at all in Poland, or have a low paid job. I personally have never ever meat a person in Poland who has a good job and emigrates. Funnyly enough, most of the emigrants out of the UK are highly educated people who get good jobs abroad, like engineers, reaserchers, bankers and managers. Ask yourself a question, how many Polish dentists, doctors, scientists, computer programmers do you see abroad? And how many street cleaners, dish washers or bag handlers do you see? So who is emigrating? To me it seems the UK is having a brain drain. You only need to read a few English (oops, sorry, British) papers to see the intelligence there.

And anyway, if i was to ever emigrate, the UK would probably be the last country i would ever emigrate to. With bad weather, with lots of crime, with high taxes, with agressive people, with a terrible education system, with no industry and a corrupt government, hell only the idiots would want to go there; oh wait, they do!

You say: "Ask yourself a question, how many Polish dentists, doctors, scientists, computer programmers do you see abroad? "

Well, I don't think anybody can come up with a head count of Polish doctors, dentists, etc. but it so happens that I know of two specific examples. They are different because a Polish engineer I happen to know has emigrated to Britain and has no intentions to return. My second case involves a Polish MD who has been working in a Swedish hospital for many years but keeps her Polish residence, spends time with her family in Poland and expects to retire in Poland with a Swedish pension. And that's the key. According to her, years of living alone in Sweden while being paid Swedish salary as an MD and expectations of her future Swedish-paid pension make it all worthwhile.

Chris, you are 100% right. But those migrants from Poland have lots of grievances due to unfulfilled expectations resulting from tribal mentality. They are expecting government will arrange them office job for life since they got their free university education in topics like political science. If that does not happen and they have to move out and work nightshifts in warehouses there is big frustration. Due to this, they also give a willing ear to populists and demagogues and spread all kind on nonsense while being totally ignorant.

You see the typical case here from Didomy when he says he does not know any numbers bu he knows two cases. The numbers are available, for example Polish doctors in the UK, they have to register with the NHS. Obviously these are not any big numbers so they are not mentioned at all.

Regarding the overall migration levels basic logic tells one has to make difference between the years 2004-8 and later. 2004-8 were the boom years with unlimited amounts of jobs offered, and many good jobs - no wonder then migration peaked. But from the present perspective this was evident abnormality, times are normal now and migration is nohting to talk much about.

It's obvious that you never experienced have emigration looks like and are repeating negative stereotypes about emigrants from Polish press that were to badmouth them(blaming the victim strategy). Around 44% of emigrants are either skilled ones or with higher education.There is no problem with finding Polish doctors, lawyers, managers,IT specialists abroad. It's a normal sight in the West(just as there are builders, electricians or plumbers-all well payed and skilled jobs).
As to UK, people in UK are generally more polite and friendly than in Poland from my experience.
"hell only the idiots would want to go there; oh wait, they do!"
See the sentence above which your insult confirmed.
No doubt people going to a country with higher life expectancy, living standards and higher wages are "idiots".
I guess they should stay in Poland and fuel the failed state with taxes?

"The numbers are available, for example Polish doctors in the UK, they have to register with the NHS. Obviously these are not any big numbers so they are not mentioned at all"
Really? Then you shouldn't have any problem with presenting these numbers.
I do have them and there are significant.

To emigrate from Russia one has to get long-term visas, work permits and so on which is really hard especially in the present times of job scarcity. Hence those who emigrate from Russia have some kind of valuable assets to offer: money, skills, marriages, so no wonder there are 30 000 of them at most.

Now compare this with migration from Poland which is within the EU open labor markets. Everybody can move if there is some job on offer and when takes it gets automatically residence.
Looking from this perspective it is not emigration at all, it is just migration of workers.

The effect of this is that huge majority of migrants are unskilled, uneducated people from countryside. The city which is the topic of Economist article is in fact in the center of one of the areas in Poland with huge concentration of such people.

Total number of registered Polish medical doctors in the UK is about 2 000. Not all of them are actually working and or residing in the UK (some even came for weekend shifts) which brings the actual number just above 1 000. The total number of medical doctors in Poland is about 120 000. Now compare this, close to 1% is working in the UK. What kind of problem is this? In fact, migration of professionals from Poland is still below typical for developed countries. Poland is backward in this respect.

In a 2012 poll conducted by TE in Moscow and Petersburg up to 60% polled Russians declared intentions or willingness to leave Russia for the West, or at least send their children to study at Western universities. It's why Russians will need visas to enter the EU for quite a long time in the foreseeable future.

It's why Russians will need visas to enter the EU for quite a long time in the foreseeable future.
-
Why? Because russian authorities do not want their citizens to go, or because EU authorities do not want they to enter?

"... Polish medical doctors in the UK is about 2 000. Not all of them are actually working and or residing in the UK .."
Would you explain how an MD not actually working or residing in the UK needs to be registered ?
Also, do you know of any info on numbers and conditions for Polish doctors working in Sweden ?

Didomyk, about those Polish doctors in the UK: the number of registered doctors by far does not reflect the number of working and permantnetly staying there. It is collective statistics of people who have registered at some point. People move, people work on time-limited contracts and there are even those who come over the weekend. Actual number of doctors working and residing is estimated to be below 1500. This is 1% of doctors in Poland. Regarding Sweden, the number of doctors from Poland is also negligible since language barrier is even higher.

There is no basis for claiming there is significant outflow of highly skilled people from Poland. In fact the claim of low mobility and international experience is closer to truth.

It's not just the unskilled that are leaving, far from it, as Ms Kwiatkiewicz rightly points out. And it's not the shortage of organizations like Lewiatan, which are full of experts saying seemingly wise things and having no apparently positive effect.

There is also most certainly a brain drain, that is why nincompoops like the one from the Warsaw University’s Centre for Migration Research can say the things they do.

TE should remember that under communism Poland was something like the 11th most industrialised nation in the world. Of course the devil is in the details, e.g. Poland was the major producer of essential parts for Soviet tanks, and the shipyards worked around the clock for the same customer - but why did virtually all of it have to go? How come it was sold off and ordinary Poles got zilch? However strange the arrangement might have been (Western, e.g. British colonialism was also pretty strange), this was still something a new and democratic Poland could build on? Germany hung on to her industry and now rules the EU.

Part of the problem arose when the entire communist bloc rightly lost faith in the centralised economy, but then made the most foolish mistake of trusting Western experts like George Soros and Jeffrey Sachs (came over to Poland in 1988, iirc). That was a very bad start, and then it only got worse, when the current Polish establishment worked up an appetite for a bulimia type of greed.

One thing is certain, it's not a problem with ordinary Poles. The "experts" are also fretting about demographic decline, yet why are planes flying between Poland and the UK so frequently full of Polish parents with very young children?

fromGdansk is an excellent example of the 'post-communist' way of thinking, typical for large segments of populations in Eastern Europe. On one-hand there is this brainwash of communist largesse "we were industrial power then" and on the other hand the communist instilled conspiracy theories about the mythical West as the source of all evil. This is used by populists telling they could do it differently and make everybody rich quick. From this mixture there come those simple-minded prescriptions how to do it, like e.g.: "Germany hung up on her industry and now rules the EU". Which for anybody with a bit of unwashed brain is patently stupid as the industry in former communist East Germany is a glaring example how it has been completely cleaned up. Germany indeed hangs on industries, but on the level of BMW or Porsche which obviously rule but in their market segments. The poor mind shortcut here is that supposedly in the communist Poland there were also such BMW-class industries but they were destroyed by the Western conspiracy. While in truth communism was not even an economy in normal sense. But from poor poisoned minds comes nonsense thinking.

fromGdansk has yet another typical populist shortcut:"why are planes flying between Poland and the UK so frequently full of Polish parents with very young children?"

The answer is simple: great majority of migrants from Poland are from poorest and most underdevelepod regions in the countryside. They are unskilled, uneducated and have low aspirations. In this sense they share with some other immigrant groups from undeveloped world. Managing life in the UK is then based on collecting as sizable benefits as possible and qualify for social housing. This is why they make big families. Statistics about procreation levels among different immigrant groups confirm this 100%. Such model of life will become more difficult when restrictions on social support will come to effect in the UK, e.g. social housing after at least 5 ys of residence.

Regarding the "brain drain" stereotype there is nothing like this to any significant numbers. Quite opposite, many of those who left returned back and they are transformed. Those unskilled and uneducated which leave are not passive anymore. Migration is an asset, not drain.

"They are unskilled, uneducated and have low aspiration"
Incorrect. 44% of them are skilled and with higher education.You are repeating your false mantra like a broken machine.Typing it several times in a row won't make it true.

Nonsense, check the statistics - they are working menial jobs at minimum wages. About skills, what skills are you talking about? Driving license? From those with higher education most is from phony educational establishments and/or in the topics like 'european studies'. You definitely have not seen any statstics about migrants and you even do not know where to find them.

Polish (East German, Czech etc) industry of those times was outdated in many ways, and would not be able to compete when the markets opened in any case. Mass-scale privatisation for bigest price offered would have been the correct answer and solution to the challenges of that time, unfortunately, the political class did not have spine for it. You have a point, though, that Poland chose wrong advisers, but I would over-estimate their influence. You should have gone the Estonian way much further, and Leshek B & Co should have been in charge for at least five years longer.

And Poland has never made a single tank part sent to the Soviet Union and put into a Soviet tank. Polish-made tanks went to Iraq and Libya, just to name these two countries, and were rusting on Polish parking areas.
As once my Canadian skier-friend living in New Zealand worded it "your home and your homeland is where your mortgage is".

This is yet another simple-minded solution: go Estonian way. First, Estonia is miniature country comparing to Poland. Second, extreme nationalism was a driving force there, whatever could do damage to the ruskies minority was fine.
Third, Estonia got substantial investment from neighboring Nordic countries but this has created bubble and the end effect is huge number of people which moved out.

In the end all former Soviet empire countries are mish-mash in the same category. Poland in fact is faring very well in comparison to others, no major bust like in Latvia, no extreme politics like in Hungary and unique GDP growth of 18% from 2008.

It's also amazing that Poland has the lowest percentage of declared Russophobes among the former soviet bloc countries and republics (less than 30% while Kosovo over 73%) that can be explained by the fact that 90% or more Poles never took communism, and particularly its Russian form Sovietism, seriously.
Even the overwhelming majority of the Polish United Workers' Party members (or PZPR, as Polish communists didn't even have the guts to call it a communist party and used that euphemism) took everything they preached with their tongues in cheeks.
Soviets, but not necessarily Russians, were treated by most Poles with contempt, disdain and revulsion, so Polish society created a parallel system grouped around the Catholic Church, and more or less peacefully coexisting with the official Soviet propaganda that was mostly laughed at.
That set of values and factors helped make the transition from the insane Soviet system into the market-driven economy easier that in other former Soviet bloc countries. The reality of 75% of all arable land in Poland being held by individual Polish farmers in 1991 sealed the "deal".

History is not exactly the topic of this thread but your interpretation is rather simplified if not outright funny. Catholic values and factors helped made easier transition into the market-driven economy? That is way over the top. The transition was forced since communism totally collapsed in Poland, there was no other way.

You're the one who sounds like a typical "post-communist" ideologue, actually. I heard a lot of such nonsense in Poland in the early 1990s, spouted by the likes of Leszek Balcerowicz, who just a decade earlier (in Thatcher's day) was a professor at the Communist Party’s Institute for Basic Problems of Marxism-Leninism.
Yes, a Marxist think tank, spouting ideological bullshit in 1980, miraculously converted into an arch-capitalist, spouting pseudo liberal bullshit in 1990. Not that Balcerowicz was being naive - far from it. The post-communists (the bright ones, that is) suddenly became incredibly wealthy capitalists, appropriating what had previously been grabbed from private owners and officially became "public property", was again made private property, but this time in the hands of those post-communist thieves.
And this was possible because they were grotesquely parodying Thatcher, Reagan, Freedman, Hayek, Adam Smith quite out of context, talking absolutely unrealistic cobblers, much like your post above.

"History is not exactly the topic of this thread but your interpretation is rather simplified if not outright funny. Catholic values and factors helped made easier transition into the market-driven economy? That is way over the top. The transition was forced since communism totally collapsed in Poland, there was no other way."
With all due respect, I totally disagree with your statement although have to admit that once democracy set in in Poland, the Church started degenerating.
Before that, though, going to church and preserving ethical values was kind of an anticommunist statement in the bipolar show run by the Kremlin's puppets in the Soviet-occupied Poland.
Life was bipolar there, as people with guts who wanted to make a difference could be seen and heard only if they were associated with either the Church or the pro-Soviet crowd. The silent majority usually sided with the Church, especially during the times of trial.
The Church was a powerful catalyst of democratic changes that brought about the market economy.

Migration from rural and underdeveloped eastern Poland started as far back as the 1890s from what was then part of the Tsarist Russian Empire to industrializing Germany and particularly the USA. Both Christian and Jewish Poles in about equal numbers then laid the foundations for what became the Polish-American and Jewish-American communities of today.
An even earlier economic migration commenced after German unification in 1871 from the rural Polish provinces of the newly created Reich, but that was short lived as the source area industrialized,urbanized and caught up with the rest of the Reich. .
Economic migration from Austrian ruled south east Poland started at the same time as from Russian occupied eastern Poland and lasted the longest and with the largest numbers due to the extreme economic backwardness and poverty of the region. Those same processes (internal and external migration from east to west) have continued ever since, halted for half a century only because of communist rule which forbade freedom of movement/migration. As a result of the latter it intensified after 1989 but especially after EU entry in 2004 and the associated freedom to migrate for work purposes.

Thus its not a new process but something which has been a constant feature for well over a century. The fundamental reasons remain the same: lack of economic opportunities, a low level of urbanisation associated with a relatively lower standard of living and relatively higher reproduction rates (though these have recently collapsed).The same processes can be observed in other countries be it France in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century, Spain and Italy throughout the 20th century.

What is of concern is that the birth rate has, in reaction to lack of economic opportunity, effectively collapsed, despite Poland being at least nominally Roman Catholic. Which bodes badly for the long term as where will be the active workforce whose taxes will support an increasing large ageing population?

Mike-couple of points.
Migration from German Poland was happening as well-to United Sates.
Migration during communist times existed and reached I believe 1,8 mln to 2 mln(far less than today's emigration). Contrary to modern propaganda, it was possible under communism to move abroad(there were more harsh periods of course)

".The same processes can be observed in other countries be it France in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century, Spain and Italy throughout the 20th century"
Did any of these countries experienced unemployment of around 15% for 20 years like Poland had?

Agreed - fertility should be the top concern, population wise. The present fertility rate of 1.3 per woman means that 40% of the population is lost with each consecutive generation by lack of births alone.

Poland's net emigration of less than 0.5 in a thousand (down from nearly 10 after EU accession) pales into insignificance here. 40% population collapse per generation is overwhelmingly a case of *not enough children*.

Attention should be paid to the Dutch, UK, Irish, French and Scandinavian type interventions. (Germany, Italy and Spain also screwed up here - and suffer population collapse.) Things that seem to work:
- free all-day childcare for parents;
- income transfers and guaranteed housing for parents; near-complete income replacement for mothers' maternity leave;
- strong social pressure for men to carry the burden of housework & childcare;
- lots of support (both financial and practical) for girls to combine pregnancy and child birth with full time undergraduate or postgraduate study.
- lower marginal income tax rates for parents of two or more children
- public amenities supporting public investment in the next generation, e.g. children go free on public transport

Low fertility rate in Poland is also taken by populists and demagogues as a sign that the present system is bad. According to their mouthfuls, people are not procreating because they are poor, benefits are small and so on. Promising of course they will change it and make baby boom.

Nonsense of such thinking is evident when one looks into statistics which show countries with much higher GDP/capita have also very low fertility rates.
Germany for example. Nowhere fertility rate exceeds the 2.1 replacement level. In Scandinavia it is at the level of 1.9 but taxes are such nobody in Poland would accept them. Besides, significant part of the fertility in developed economies comes from immigrant populations coming from very poor backgrounds.

So the real reason for low fertility are changed aspirations of people, especially women. Women in Poland are now better educated than men, are dominating higher education sector and do not see the future without earning their own income and professional career. With one exception: people from countryside and at the bottom of social ladder, those with no skills and education they still want to see children as a component protecting their future. These people are thus not different from people from third world countries. And indeed they are very willing to come e.g. to the UK to make big family and claim lots of benefits and social housing.

But majority of people are thinking like those in developed countries. Thus, there is no solution to the low fertility rate. In longer term this is positive since there are too many people.

Low fertility rate in Poland is also taken by populists and demagogues as a sign that the present system is bad. According to their mouthfuls, people are not procreating because they are poor, benefits are small and so on. Promising of course they will change it and make baby boom.

Nonsense of such thinking is evident when one looks into statistics which show countries with much higher GDP/capita have also very low fertility rates.
Germany for example. Nowhere fertility rate exceeds the 2.1 replacement level. In Scandinavia it is at the level of 1.9 but taxes are such nobody in Poland would accept them. Besides, significant part of the fertility in developed economies comes from immigrant populations coming from very poor backgrounds.

So the real reason for low fertility are changed aspirations of people, especially women. Women in Poland are now better educated than men, are dominating higher education sector and do not see the future without earning their own income and professional career. With one exception: people from countryside and at the bottom of social ladder, those with no skills and education they still want to see children as a component protecting their future. These people are thus not different from people from third world countries. And indeed they are very willing to come e.g. to the UK to make big family and claim lots of benefits and social housing.

But majority of people are thinking like those in developed countries. Thus, there is no solution to the low fertility rate. In longer term this is positive since there are too many people.

Most of what you say is accurate - low fertility rates are a consequence of female empowerment, women having other options and career/ lifestyle aspirations.

And yet, it is still in the interests of society to ensure that aspirations are somewhat aligned with the public interest.

Depending on the things you care about (e.g. if you care about scientific progress, mathematics, engineering, richness of popular culture, pension sustainability), you may prefer for Poland to avoid population collapse.

Fertility rates in the UK, Ireland, France and Sweden do receive a contribution from immigrants, but remain close to replacement (above 1.8) even once the effects of recent migration are removed. It is worth giving some attention to see how these governments improve the alignment of "social/ income/ career aspirations" with childbirth.

The emigration to the West, including overseas, from the general area of the Bug river (Poland's present eastern border) is not a new phenomenon, it has been an ongoing and irreversible process for almost a century. Having chosen Siemiatycze as a focal point of his story the author regrettably provided no background of the region's history, its demographics and its ethnic roots.
It can be taken for granted that most readers have no idea about the region`s past, including that for generations the region`s rural, small farms economy dominated by large forested areas, could never support its young population. Of course, emigration was not an option since 1945 under the communist regime, but it was well known in the 1930s. I know specific examples of families who's grandparents, having emigrated from the same general region of the pre-war Poland in mid-1930s, managed to establish deep roots in the fertile soil of the Canadian or US western regions. The key difference is, of course, in the EU labour mobility provisions granted to the population of Poland as one of the EU countries.

But notice this is, precisely-speaking, not emigration. This is migration within open EU labor market, there are no borders anymore. Dó not compare this with the times of comunism, this is absurd. By the way, migration is now much bigger from Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece than from Poland.

"By the way, migration is now much bigger from Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece than from Poland".Source please...
We are not dealing with now though but with a decade old process.
And these countries have much higher standard of living, infrastructure and wealth than Poland. It is a temporary thing for them, just like high unemployment. For Poland it is a permanent thing.

Heh, try emigrate to US, Australia or Canada - you will see then what is the difference between the migration.

People from Poland have absolutely no understanding what is EU. They have no idea they are EU citizens and they have rights to free movement. It is just a freckle that the UK has not signed to the Schengen agreement but this does not preclude the free movement.

"Didomyk-the current emigration is both greater in numbers then in Great Depression and throughout the whole 45 years of communism(which provided job and housing for every Pole-very evil)"
Are you kidding this audience or count on their low IQs? Do you know how long it took to have the right to a rented co-op apartment in the Soviet-occupied Poland?
I was a highly sough-after mining-related discipline specialist fluent in three languages and graduating with a Master's Degree from AGH University of Science and Technology and contracted by a mining company-funded scholarship, and I had to wait for a co-op apartment for almost two years with my wife and firstly one and, next, two little children. For others it took more that 10 years to acquire the right to a substandard co-op apartment.
I quit my mining company job right after my scholarship contractual obligations ceased, and started working for national and, later, international firstly Polish and, next, US companies through "Polservice" that took over 50% of my salaries.
Thank goodness, after a year or so I could tell my US bosses about my arrangement with "Polservice", so they duped "Polservice" by offering them a long-term contract with me, but for a lower compensation package. Those greedy idiots accepted it, so most of my real salary ended up in an offshore tax haven.
I worked in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, North Africa and, after I eventually got my whole family out of Poland during martial law introduced by Soviet puppet Wojciech Jaruzelski, a couple of years in West Germany before I decided to emigrate to North America.
BTW, I bought my co-op apartment in Poland for peanuts in 1980 and still keep it to stay there for several weeks every year (it costs me less than half of what I spend on my SUV).

Didomyk-the current emigration is both greater in numbers then in Great Depression and throughout the whole 45 years of communism(which provided job and housing for every Pole-very evil)

A job and housing for everyone? What a paradise communism must be! A very stable and fair system which is stillt thriving in many parts of...oh, wait, not so much. And any way, emigration is higher today simply because people have much more freedom to emigrate than ever before. Please try to connect with reality.

Actually, it cost me about the same I made working in Poland for less than a quarter a year net my expenses I was generously reimbursed for. I didn't even need to touch my US dollar bank account I could legally hold, as I worked abroad more than in the country. It cost me at the prevailing black market USD/PLN exchange rate less that $1000 and it's now worth at least 60,000 USD.
The real slide of the zloty started after the Kremlin's puppet Jaruzelski introduced martial law on the 13th of December 1981.

1. In 1993 one of your ministers (Lewandowski) sells modern factory for $120MM and since then the same factor generates EBIT of $160MM EVERY YEAR for new owners (global corporation) leaving small amount of taxes in Poland?

2. None of communistic nobles were prosecuted nor punished and we had Polish version of Pinochet (Jaruzelski) and Himmler (Kiszczak)?

3. It costs over 12MM EUR to build 1km of the road in the flat terrain?

4. In Catholic countries, people are being humiliated because of their origin, race or social class?

5. It takes you over 6 months to get all permissions to start the business?

6. The interpretation of law depends of people's mood or personal opinions and varies between tax offices or courts?

7. Your country has the modification of constitution given by other regime (Stalin)?

8. There's the highest % of students in EU, but only few get professional qualifications or useful skills?

9. The nation of almost 40MM people DOES NOT have it's own national products - not even one brand that could be associated with them?

10. After 45 dark years of communism, people voted TWICE for former Communistic Party clerk (Al Kwasniewski)?

11. People go to church, but they behave like they don't believe in God and never heard about human rights?

12. Police is set-up to collect tickets and generate budget revenues. The more tickets and crimes, the better for local chief, so that you can get prosecuted by having a beer in your hand in the public place?

Please, tell me if above are possible in your countries and you will know why I left Poland many years ago.

Poland needs help from outside, because local government's inability to run the state is visible even from Singapore...

Normally it was Moscow or Berlin or Vienna that was running Poland, because Warsaw is not capable even to deal with it's own problems having over 700 deputies.

This list indicates somebody with psychological profile of a looser who compenstaes by adhering to populism, demagogy and nonsense . Suffice it to say the list is a mixture of craziness and lies plus personal fixations.

For example, establishing company in Poland takes 6 months? This is absurdity.

Or, police collect tickets for having a beer publicly?

And in the end we have this: "inability to run the state is visible even from Singapore".

Hmm, in Singapore rules are much, much more stricter than in Poland:).

Singapore has public housing,which in Poland was abolished after 1989 Solidarity takeover as "communist idiocy". Now we lack 2 million homes, but our government will friendly advise these people living on wages barely providing food and rent to take loans in some western bank to buy a house built by western owned developers.
Welcome to colonialism of 21st century!

Yeah, nice comparison: Singapore, Monaco, Luxembourg and so on. You may wish to add Switzerland, Norway, Quatar and Kuwait. Such examples prove nothing for these are places based on enormous resources or financial hubs. Please compare to the Western countries such like Portugal /most western in EU/, Spain, Greece.

"9. The nation of almost 40MM people DOES NOT have it's own national products - not even one brand that could be associated with them?"

How'bout "polska kelbasa" ?

But indeed thats about all Poland is known with, besides its illiterate emigrants considering the thousands of jokes about the polack gastarbeiter in Germany.

But worry not, Ukraine is on its way to kick off the poles from the lucrative janitor positions in the German public toilets, and there will be stiff competition considering that the EU subsidies Poland was receiving will now go to Ukraine simply because the EU are too broke to afford to subsidize increasing number of beggar countries.

I am a graduate of two public universities in Poland. I have both MA and BA degree. During my studies I had internships in several companies. I speak both English and German.
After finishing university I struggled to find a job for 3 years. Yes, three years. I have sent out hundreds of CV's, I have delivered CV's by hand. I went into companies asking for jobs. I phoned recruiters. Unfortunately my family has no connections, so there are no jobs for people like us. And after three years, my grandmother died.My parents inherited a small amount of money, but enough for them to buy me a ticket to the West, and leave a bit for food and rent.It took me 1 month to find a job in the West.I will never go back to Poland, and I urge any other Pole to stay. Poland is dead.
I have studied political science and history, and it is obvious to me that the West has turned our country into modern version of a colony. We provide the west with cheap labor, while our industry and economy has either been destroyed or taken over by western corporations. All of our elites are in pockets of one foreign power or another, and the few that might strive for independence(which is impossible anyway), are either ridiculed or inept.
There is no hope for Poland.
Since CIA-funded Solidarity won in 1989, and ruthless "reforms" have been enacted in 1992 Polish unemployment on average was around 15% since 20 years(!). Don't believe me?
Just look at official statistics about unemployment.http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_677_PLK_HTML.htm
I repeat Poland is dead, and will stay that way. We have been defeated and crushed as a nation, our elites are either corrupt, inept or dead.Do not return. Only poverty and despair awaits in Poland.

This is typical example how loosers create their psychological compensation by invoking conspiracy theories. They claim to be educated, yet they have no useful skills so they blame western companies and the CIA on their fate. They were dreaming about permanent govenment job in politcal science but they have to work night shifts in warehouses. So they compensate by shouting 'Poland is a colony' and it is 'dead'. While obviously it is an enormous success story in transition from communism to open market economy. For loosers however, it is really bad since there is no plenty of jobs for political science degree holders. If anything, this proves that in reality economy in Poland is not going the way of Greece, Portugal, Spain and others which is very healthy indeed. And by the way, unemployment in Poland is so much lower than in those countries.

If you want to work in Poland, you should study something that is in demand in Poland.
Before starting studies, people don't wonder if they will have a job after graduation and later complain like you.

"Claim to be educated". Well my degrees are real, it seems you are the one with conspiracy theories.
"yet they have no useful skills" it seems employers disagree as I am happily working in an office job for above minimum wage.
"They were dreaming about permanent govenment job in politcal science but they have to work night shifts in warehouses."
Never dreamed about job in government because I know they are reserved for families and connection. I also never worked a night shift or in a warehouse.True-I applied for such position in Poland, but never heard back. Probably for the better since now I am working in an office.
But yes-ad hominem attacks and trying to insult and ridicule person who writes something disagreeing with propaganda about Poland is so typical. Just shows your desperation and lack of arguments in a futile attempt to conceal how Poland was turned in a hopeless neo-colonial enterprise.
" And by the way, unemployment in Poland is so much lower than in those countries."
Today. They didn't experience the same unemployment on such high levels as Poland had since 1992.

"While obviously it is an enormous success story in transition from communism to open market economy".
2,5 million emigrants, unemployment at around 15% since 1992(would be 30% if not for emigration). Decaying infrastructure, living standards, rising poverty. Yes, a great success. But not for Poles.

" For loosers however, it is really bad since there is no plenty of jobs for political science degree holders" I doubt there are jobs for others as well considering the millions who escaped.
I wouldn't btw consider anyone who escaped from Poland to a country with better wage and living conditions a loser. More of an successful person.
But do go on. Your bile and passionate insults against Poles who no longer live a life of poverty and despair, and describe the real Poland are telling.

"If you want to work in Poland, you should study something that is in demand in Poland."
Considering the fact that after flight of 2,5 million Poles abroad there is still 15% unemployment, there is hardly anything in demand in Poland.
In any case I studied what was my passion since my early days, and what I read countless books about even before my studies.I did not expect much after university. With my language skills and internships I just wanted a lowly position at reception, maybe a clerk in some western company. Nothing much. Of course later I applied for all kinds of positions, in call centers, service desks, shops, receptionists at language schools and so on.
It makes me wonder-as the jobs I applied in Poland for and never received an answer(and there were hundreds of them) are now below my level in the West, and I work at much higher position.
Emigrating gave me not only a job, but also self-respect and confidence. In Poland I would only found poverty and eventual starvation.

now let me tell you a short story:
my fiancee moved to krakow after completing her studies in a field, which sadly was more useless in the real world than what you studied. her skills were three languages (english,french,polish) and an MA. she found a very well paying office job in one month - so much so that she could support the both of us if she wanted to.

the divergence of this story with what you present as the reality of all people living in poland is interesting, certainly ;)

My story is true and honest. I have no doubt that a part of yours is either concealed or untrue. In any case statistics are on my side. 14-15% unemployment, wages on substance level, people working on thrash contracts with no contribution to pensions.
Poland is a failed state.

you don't have to believe me. if it doesn't fit in with your preconceived notion of polish realities, then you will claim that i am hiding something, that's fine.
i just wanted to highlight that your experience (as depressing as it may have been) is not and does not have to be the experience of others living here.
all the best working abroad! i hope you find happiness and success over there, just as others are finding it in poland. no need for cynical commentary :D

" if it doesn't fit in with your preconceived notion of polish realities"
These aren't preconceived notions. These are Polish realities. Average 15% unemployment since 1992. Millions of people fleeing in search of jobs abroad, millions living in poverty or on thrash contracts.All of this is confirmed by official data. And you can see people begging for food on the street or searching thrash cans for remains of food.
" is not and does not have to be the experience of others living here". Yes, it is true that like in any other Third World country, there is an elite of rich people in Poland making around 5-10% of population.

", just as others are finding it in poland"Not many of those I am afraid.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but many political science and history graduates flip hamburgers at McDonald's in Canada and the US. Everything in the market economy can be monetised and assigned a fair market value.
I can agree that some university graduates with advanced computer and IT skills cannot find proper employment in Poland, but people speaking and writing fluent English with marketable business, finance and technical degrees from reputable universities can find well-paid and satisfying jobs there.

I had no problems finding a great job in Poland - actually, I landed one in 3 weeks. Since I joined them 4 yerars ago my company added almost 500 jobs in the city of Poznan which we fill with new graduates innthe fields of economics, finance and marketing mostly, whom we start not on the minimum wage but national average salary. There is no one-fits-all rule, but a lot depends on the skills, knowlegde and where you're looking for a job. If you can sell your skills to the recruiter, you can get a good job with political science or teaching degree as well, I have personally hired candidates with that background and been very happy with them.

Guys, great thanks for bringing up cases of finding jobs in Poland. There is quite a lot of people in Poland with tribal mentality. They expect things like jobs and housing should be provided for them by the tribe. Otherwise the tribe is guilty of a big crime made on them. To prove their point they often use arguments like: "But in Norway...." not minding the place is like lottery winner. Their aspirations are lunatic especially when one looks at their real market value.

My two cents (or groszy) would be as follows: I opened up my own company in Warsaw 6 months ago, have great growth, need to expand, and am having trouble finding candidates to hire. I couldnt even find anyone to paint the walls of my new office for under 5000 zloty!! The only gripe I would have is the truly low wages people receive in Poland. I will certainly pay above the market value, only because I feel obliged to, but cannot pay much more because of the realities of the market as well. The problem why there are such low wages is also because companies are willing to whore out their products for minimal margin, only to "win the sale". And that is a cultural issue. Instead of having some self-respect and demanding a high margin for a (hopefully) high quality product, Polish companies will drop their pants (and prices) right away, which means to make a minimal profit they need to squeeze wages, suppliers, everyone... There was an old saying in the US - What an American will do for a dollar, an Irishman will do for a quarter, and a Pole for a nickel.

If you've studied history, you should know that Poland has been in far deeper sh*t before, and yet, seemingly against all odds, has always manages to pick herself up with impressive glory and valour. This is what makes us proud of our history.

On the other hand, historians also have to ask the question as to why Poland so frequently finds herself in hopeless situations. One of the reasons is the often hysterically negative and self-centred attitudes of many Poles, a sentiment you perfectly illustrate.

1. The total number of emigrants from Poland is 2.1 mln. Is this a small or a huge number? Obviously it must related to the population total which the author of the article is completely missing. Now, for those uninformed, all Polish citizens number 38 mln. What comes out is that 6-7% of population moved abroad. Compare this to the UK which has 10%, or Ireland which has 20% of population living abroad.
In reality, a single percentage digit of population living abroad is a norm in Europe.

2. The number of migrants from Poland has jumped sharply during 2004-8 after joining the EU. But notice these were the years of the peak of the period which ended in the Great Recession. There were unlimited job markets in places from Ireland to Greece, which are now mostly in ruin or recovering like the UK. Sounds unbelievable now but there huge recruitment shows in Poland then. Thus no wonder people have moved massively but as can be seen above they just made the numbers of migrants close to the normal for any open society.

3. "Brain drain" is a just catchy slogan when it is not supported by any numbers. The numbers show that well over 90% migrants from Poland are people from countryside and small cities in undeveloped regions without education. Poland is a country where still 20% population lives in villages. What the current migration is just a process ofr moving to the cities but this time the cities are in the EU. There is thus no brain drain, just a muscle drain which has no economic effect, In fact opposite is true, this is positive drain since finally a passive part of the population is acitvated.

4. One can say that the growth of the migration from Poland in 2004-8 due to the abnormal period of overeheated economy in the receiving countries. But how about last couple of years? The current migrants are to a great extent temporary, they know very well that it is impossible to plan for stable future while working on minimal salaries. This is thus a 'temporary' migration.

Nobody abroad works on "minimal salary".
I am in the west since 2 years and I already work above minimum wage. Most of immigrants I know, have been here since more than a year or two, and none of them(besides a small number of very unskilled and unmotivated individuals) work for minimum wage. In fact the trend is to get your parents here as well from Poland.
The claim that immigrants are uneducated is a myth. There are lot of immigrants with higher education, and those who worked here for a long time, already have high positions in corporations or even their own companies.
As to claim "cities are now in EU" that is ridiculous, because it means Poland should become a depopulated rural area.

What you write is flying in the face of mass statistics. Overwhelming majority of migrants are unskilled and uneducated and work for minimal wage. Your view is distorted by your personal circle sample. True, there are some Oxford professors among the migrants but statistically this means nothing. Moreover, if we go to details on migrants education, most of those educated were in the topics like "european studies" or "politology" which is not meaningful at all.

Regarding your claim "Poland should become depopulated rural area" this again illustrates ignorance in statistics. Compare over 20% population living in the countryside Poland with the statistics of any better developed country in EUrope at most a couple of percents of people live. In this respect Poland is really backward, reason for this is that there has not been fully completed transition to the cities at earlier stages of industrialization. This is even more striking when one knows there a milions of people which live susbistence living on a very small farms. Young people from this background started finally moving out encouraged by the opportunities in the EU.
However, there is still significant reservoir left.

Sorry to rain on your parade again, but your English needs a lot of work to enable you to talk and write on the level allowing you to land a job as a historian or political scientist.
You've been in the west for two years (I hope not in the UK or Ireland) and you've just made two basic errors indicating that you don't have the first clue how to use present perfect tense. Get real, please!

"Employers [...] are still faced with a stubborn problem: the salaries they offer cannot compete with those offered by employers in Germany and beyond. Anna Kwiatkiewicz of the Lewiatan employers’ confederation complains of a 'skills drain' among technical workers."

______________________________

And that is precisely the point: the problem is not so much a "brain drain" (of university graduates who might or might not become the next Marie Skłodowska-Curie, spending her professional life mainly in Paris instead of Warsaw;)), but the fact the pool of skilled labor (with a university degree or without) has been drained nearly completely over the last 5-10 years, which greatly diminuishes business prospects for Polish companies.

A Polish friend of mine is site manager for a large Polish road construction company in Western Poland, and while the construction sector is booming thanks to large EU transfers for infrastructure and even though he's rising through the ranks quickly, he's considering applying abroad because Polish construction companies "are falling apart", as he puts it drastically.

As he explained to me, so many qualified people have left that most Polish construction companies now have difficulty providing the services asked for in public tenders -- so they have to partner up, often with western companies, and lose part of the deal.

I have made similar experiences in other branches, and I would argue that - while it was good for individual Poles - full liberalization of the EU labor market came at least 5 yrs too early for Polish businesses to compete.

The ancient Phoenicians were the first ones who invented the means of retaining the most valuable employees on one's payroll. Foreign companies must be violating fair competition rules and dump cheap workforce in contravention to Polish labour market legal regulations. Every intelligent business person realises that there's no perfect competition in real life and legal regulations are needed to maintain an orderly free-market economy.

"full liberalization of the EU labor market came at least 5 yrs too early for Polish businesses to compete."
When EU opened its labor market for Poles, there was 20% unemployment in Poland. Knowing the mentality of Polish "businessmen" they would love it to be around 40% and demand that workers work for free, or even pay for the opportunity to gain working experience.

Poland has proven to be one of the most competent structural funds recipients.

Part of that involves an open competitive tender process, in which the lowest bidder (with quality & capacity assessment adjustments) wins the contract.

Polish construction has proven capable of bidding prices down ridiculously low (to a very small fraction of what is paid in Germany). That is probably why they are "falling apart" and unable to recruit or retain many experienced people.

They are somehow mostly using German Autobahn capital equipment and building high quality roads however.

"Poland has proven to be one of the most competent structural funds recipients."
Maybe when it comes to abusing the system and filling up pockets of corrupt businessmen and officials. A common man sees nothing of these funds and his life has not improved in slightest way(in fact poverty in Poland is on the increase).

"They are somehow mostly using German Autobahn capital equipment and building high quality roads however."
Newly built roads in Poland are famous for being shoddy and cracking apart after one winter. Another fund from EU is then needed for necessary repairs....

Comments here are much more interesting thant the article itself. For example claims like: "pool of skilled labor (with a university degree or without) has been drained nearly completely over the last 5-10 years" This utter nonsense, there is absolutely no shortage of qualified manpower of any kind in Poland. Quite opposite, people complain about tight job market!

Or something like this:"Knowing the mentality of Polish "businessmen" ..." - this illustrates widespread mentality of hatress towards market economy. Significant part of the population longs for good old commie times.

You've hit all the nails on their heads. The commie mentality of entitlement can be devastating and self-destructive, and it is as PiotrAnonim's case clearly demonstrates.
I left Poland with a Master's engineering Degree close to three decades ago, but was lucky to work in Poland on a paid-for-project basis or for US companies abroad, so I ate what I killed.
When, in North America, I took some communication courses before taking GMAT and, subsequently, obtaining an MBA from a reputable North American university, one of my communication courses' teacher told us a very revealing thing that "A-students teach B-students how to work for C-students". BTW, Bill Gates is a Harvard drop-out.

> Poles increasingly bemoan the lack of a coherent government policy on migration in either direction [...] their government is failing them<

Precisely so. Poles are deeply frustrated. On the one hand Freedom, including freedom of movement was a dream worth fighting for in the dark age of real communism and shortly afterwards, and it is an over-riding value which Poles still believe in. On the other - the permanent departure of (especially but not only) educated Poles is a loss and to many Poles leaving to work are deeply frustrated that they have to do so.

Then there's a problem of low fertility of Polish women... in Poland. Polish women in eg. UK are among having the most children.

So the government has all the trumps at hand:

a society of highly educated and/or eager to work people, the first group highly creative in their fields of expertise

women eager, more! happy to give birth and raise children

advantageous economic/political situation internationally - as never in the history.

Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusan citizens ready to start working/settle LEGALLY in Poland, and fill the gap as they already do, without the need to pretend they are on tourist visits.

What more is needed to close the income gap and 'state friendliness' gap in the degree when migration for work would not make sense for average Jan Kowalski? He does not need to earn as much as in London to stay in his Siemiatycze.
Being very ambitious and ready to travel for better wage/more promising job he would prefer to travel to nearby, Polish-speaking Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Wrocław etc.
The jobs will be there, and quickly - Poland is still a services desert - once the promises of low and STABILE taxes and rules are set and sticked to.

Wasn't Donald Tusk's promise in election time when I first voted for his party 6 years ago, the badly needes stopping the exodus and making Poland a state friendly to citizens? Weren't low taxes a promise for enterpreneurs?

What more is needed to construct a family-friendly environment, promoting the families with many children? Wasn't it Bronisław Komorowski's aim to PUSH for that when he was applying for the job in Belweder?

That's exactly the feeling among many Poles, from the rich, investing-prone groups, through middle class to those who have just their two hands to deal with the world - the government is failing them.

"Then there's a problem of low fertility of Polish women... in Poland. Polish women in eg. UK are among having the most children."

This is flagship example raised by populist politicians in Poland. But be rather careful with it since what it illustrates is that those migrating are unskilled, uneducated and with aspirations at the bottom of social ladder. Their only way to keep up is by making children to get benefits and social housing.

"On the other - the permanent departure of (especially but not only) educated Poles is a loss and to many Poles leaving to work are deeply frustrated that they have to do so."

People are catching simple-minded demagogy and populism like this and spread it without any thinking about it. One can easily prove the opposite: migration has VERY positive impact in Poland. Why?
Start with those reasons:

1. 20+% of population lives in the countryside mostly in subsistence farming. They are passive, no education, no skills, not doing anything and not paying taxes. Most migrants recruit from them. From being social burden they become an asset.

2. Poland is ethnically homogeneous country which has been closed for long time. It is mentally backward in this regard with people still staring in the streets when they see e.g. face of color.

3. Lots of people migrate for a couple of years (it is estimated that among those migrating to the UK half has returned). This people are like awakened when returning.

4. Among educated migrants, only minor numbers are those with real professions and skills. However, many of them try to network and invest or make businesses in Poland. They learn establishing business abroad is hard due to the competition in developed markets

5. Economy in Poland develops since those who were passive are more active as migrants conritbuting money and contacts. Airports, travel and turism are good examples of this.

II. Departure/frustration. You are discussing with yourself. I didn't claim that migration has no positive aspects. However I will gladly answer your points:

1. Agreed generally, though your image of present-day residents of rural parts of Poland is outdated.

2. I don't see anything "backward" in watching the unknown with special interest. Though your vision of present-day residents of metropolitan parts of Poland is outdated.

3., 4., 5. Agreed. And there are more advantages. No-one, not even the article under which we discuss claimed that migration is detrimental per se. The point was/is different. Would you like to re-read the article and see for youself?

Engagement with Cutters' flawed view:
"Shaun, the rapidity of growth in Poland is derived mainly through EU spending."
.
No, Poland's growth is not based primarily on EU spending. Net EU spending in Poland (mostly transfers to support the mass construction of modern highways & infrastructure) is just over 3% of Polish GDP (a large share of the public investment budget, but clearly not everything). Rather, Poland's growth comes from rapid productivity convergence towards West European levels, access to world markets, massive investment by both domestic and international private businesses, from excellent education outcomes, from improving infrastructure, from rapid improvement in government institutions and more broadly from integration in the European and world economies.
.
Here are a few different (each biased in its own way) illustrations of the Poland:
.https://vimeo.com/52926510
.https://vimeo.com/32251144
.https://vimeo.com/46586255
.https://vimeo.com/75925394
.https://vimeo.com/45956727
.https://vimeo.com/34508071
.https://vimeo.com/68443565
.https://vimeo.com/29184991
.https://vimeo.com/37384527
.
Obviously, beyond these fun videos, Poland is an awesome modern European country with rapid convergence on rich world incomes. I can't really grasp where Cutters' kind of prejudice comes from.

So you keep saying, yet you have been wrong on all your fanatical euphile ranting so far.

Poland’s growth was in part due to the sizable resources from the EU structural and cohesion funds. Poland is the main beneficiary of these funds, receiving€68.7 billion between 2007-2013. Funding for 2014-2020 is reportedly to be used to drive continued infrastructure projects, to develop Poland’s energy industry, and to stimulate innovation:http://export.gov/Poland/doingbusinessinpoland/index.asp

"Poland is an awesome modern European country with rapid convergence on rich world incomes."
It's obvious that you never lived any real life in Poland, maybe besides tourism for rich, or as a child from elite.
Most people in Poland are lucky if they have a job, and even if they have one, they barely can afford rent and food.
Polish growth is nothing remarkable, just like in African countries, growth is easy to gain in impoverished regions using mass cheap labor to attract foreign investment.

Poland's growth performance is far more impressive than anywhere in Africa, Latin America or East Asia:
https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:POL:HUN:RUS#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_pp_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:POL:RUS:TUR:BRA:MEX:EGY:ZAF:CHN&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

But there are fewer reasons for German businesses to invest in plant & offices in Germany over Poland - where land is cheaper and it's easier to recruit skilled workers.

Poland is not growing rapidly merely because it is coming from a base of lower prices - but also because businesses locating there can remain fully integrated in EU markets and can attain similar productivity as with investments in West Europe or the US.

It's not merely catch-up growth: it is rapid catch up growth that looks like Poland actually will catch up (more so than, say, Japan - which still suffers real incomes 20% below Dutch levels). Incomparably more impressive than anything happening in Africa.

Shaun, people you discuss with here are typical examples of psychological loosers about recent migrants from Poland. They deny any development in Poland since this makes their failure glaring. If you show them numbers, they say it's only EU grants'. If you tell them that Poland was the only EU country which has not been through recession from 2008 and its GDP ahs actually grown by 18% during this time they will utter expletives.

The fact is that migration from Poland was huge in 2004-8 but that was in response to the excesses of what we know now was huge overheating of economies. Now migration is at quite normal
levels and much below e.g. Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Spain.
But overall the number of migrants from Poland is at 6% of overall population which is normal for any open economy.

It's funny how you result to lying now to push forward your propaganda image of Poland.
African countries have higher GDP growth than Poland and rank higher in economic rankings than Poland as well.
If we were to be honest, Poland should be classified as Third World in rankings rather than a developed country.

"I'm not sure which country you're talking about, but certainly it's not the one in which I live"
Well, do you live in Poland. Because this is the country scoring worse than African countries on several economic rankings.

"are typical examples of psychological loosers about recent migrants from Poland"
"Loosers"-people with jobs, higher income than in Poland, housing, better health care, using better roads and infrastructure.
No doubt they would win in life if they stayed in Poland fueling Polish state taxes while being unemployed.

And while everybody can surely see that you're trolling, I'll just state the obvious:
- Polish unemployment is 10.4% - bad indeed, but the vast majority of the workforce is employed

- wages in Poland are 40-60% below West European or US levels, but the cost of living is also ridiculously low. Rent is cheap; food is cheap; there is universal healthcare of a high standard. "Poverty" in Poland means inability to own a nice car, a city-centre condo or an iPhone, but nobody needs to go hungry.

- productivity and wages are both growing fast in Poland, mostly thanks to private business investment (domestic, European and international) and increasing competition for the available workforce. Yes, that is thanks to EU membership, market access, infrastructure investment and better institutions. Poland earned that as much as any other EU country, and is on a rapid path to greater prosperity.

That's a cold sober assessment of the facts. If emigration is becoming a perceived problem in Poland (more pressing than unemployment, wages, infrastructure investment, national security, healthcare or education), then Poland has clearly reached the stage where it has the luxury of first-world problems.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN2WzQzxuoA

"wages in Poland are 40-60% below West European or US levels"
Maybe to levels of western social benefit, but certainly not wages. Most people in Poland 25% of that what Westerner earns.

"But the cost of living is also ridiculously low"
You are either joking or have no idea about life in Poland. Prices in Poland are mostly 20% lower(if they are not higher) than in the West with wages being 60-80% lower.It is well known that prices in Germany for example of food and other goods are cheaper than in Poland.I can provide numerous publications about this.
"Rent is cheap; food is cheap".
I live in the West and can assure you that food here is cheaper. As to rent it doesn't consume 60% of my wages like it does my friends in Poland who didn't manage to escape yet(and have to rely on pensions of their parents to buy food).

Let's take the unemployment issue in Poland. You are correct noticing that right metrics is required for valid comparison.

But even then there is a quirk which in fact points to significantly lower real unemployment in Poland.
This is due to the fact that public health insurance is depending on the registration as unemployed. Those who are not registered are not insured. Obviously then a lot of people register who have no intention to work or are working in grey economy. If health insurance would be detached from the requirement of unemployment registration the level of unemployment would be several percentage points lower.

Also many emigrants make round trips after developing networking contracts, landing abroad well-paid and highly-regarded jobs in the IT and other technology sectors for example, and after few years sent by their western companies back to Poland to set up and manage their branch offices to hire and train Polish staff. These are win-win situations an I've herd of at least 20 cases like that.
A friend of mine, a clinical drug monitor working for and contracting with different western companies, is now in the process of organising Polish headquarters of a big Italian clinical drug test monitoring company. He's already hired 20 Polish monitors paid on average close to 5000 euro each before taxes and payroll deductions.

Please, stop. Both of my parents are Polish and I was born in California. After finishing university in the US I came to Poland for vacation and landed a job in 3 weeks in finance at an international investment bank in Warsaw.

~95% of your comments are complete rubbish and do not reflect the modern Polish reality in any way. I am not a child of the elite, my life is not a rich tourist attraction and I definitely do live in Poland.I can afford food, rent and to travel quite frequently across Europe and back to California to visit my parents.

Do not allow the fact that you studied a useless subject in a second rate university that disqualified you from a respectable job soil other people's perceptions of modern Poland; especially on an international forum such as TE.

Please feel free to stay wherever you are, I'm sure we will be better off without your toxic mentality...

With the Ukraine economy going down the drains, and the Ukraine credit ratings cut to BIG JUNK due to anticipation of Ukraine losing its principal market Russia, poor impoverished Poles will find stiff competition by the Ukraine mass emigration.

Expect yet another 5 million Ukrainians to run away of their sinking country, much what happen during the cleptocratic rule of the US-installed orange mafia, when the Ukraine economy nosedive worst not only amongst the Europe but also amongst the CIS economies and Ukraine was transformed into a cheap sex tourism destination for the western owners of the orange mafia.

The downgrade is the latest blow to the government of President Viktor Yanukovych at a time of increasing economic difficulty and tense relations with giant neighbour Russia over Kiev’s EU integration ambitions.

The agency lowered its long term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Ukraine to ‘B-’ from ‘B’, with a negative outlook, it said in a statement.

Yes, Ukraine is in a terrible economic state. Where Ukraine was once as affluent as Poland, it is now an order of magnitude poorer. That's thanks to relative isolation from world markets - Ukraine hasn't yet engaged in free trade with Europe & developed countries, nor has it reformed its institutions as in Poland, Slovakia, Estonia or Romania.

Yes, in 2012 21% (€12.3 billion) of Ukraine's exports went to Russia. But 24.6% (€14.6 billion) of Ukraine's exports went to the EU. And the greater balance of the rest went to countries with which the EU has free trade (Turkey, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, South Korea) or is negotiating free trade (US, Japan, ...).

In the first 8 months of 2013, Ukraine's exports to Russia collapsed by 25% viz-a-viz the same months in 2012. (Just maybe, that has something to do with Russia imposing dozens of illegal restrictions on Ukrainian exports, breaching both prior treaties and WTO protocol). While exports to the EU and rest of world have grown strongly.

Ukraine's general economy is a mess - yes, Ukraine will need loans and aid (the EU already makes a couple of billion euro available annually; it would seem that both the EU and US are now working behind the scenes to ensure that IMF money is made available). Longer term growth and prosperity will require opening to trade with the developed world (EU association makes a good start there).

Ukrainians can perhaps console themselves slightly with life expectancy rising 2 years above Russia's. Now the question: do they want to follow Poland's path towards West European life expectancy (i.e. 13 years longer than in Russia)?
https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:UKR:RUS:POL#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:UKR:RUS:POL:CZE:SWE:ESP:ITA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

Ukraine has been passing regulation to facilitate the association agreement, and some good faith provisional market opening has happened on the EU side too (far more would come with the actual association agreement). E.g. the EU is now Ukraine's largest wheat export market (and a very profitable one); EU markets have been open (tariff free) to Ukrainian eggs and chicken mean since October 2013.

Obviously though, the much larger benefits would come with the actual association agreement, followed by further incremental progress towards institutional reform and integration in the world economy. Ukraine has phenomenal potential in aerospace, nuclear engineering, petrochemicals, advanced steels, construction, etc. There is massive trade and investment opportunity, with the potential to add greatly to productivity and prosperity in Ukraine (and little things, like mass-market affordable access to the world's best consumer electronics).

It's not even an "either-or" situation. If Ukraine chooses trade integration with Europe and institutional reform, that also sets Ukraine on the rapid path towards trade integration with other developed world markets. And it is in Russia's interest to (eventually) do the same. Forget the bluster; get ready to stomach a few body blows from Russia as Putin attempts to assert political control over Ukraine; but if Ukraine survives the knocks, Russia will soon be back at the table looking to improve its trading position with (a more open) Ukraine (just as is the case with, say, Poland; even more so in the future as gas prices fall and Putin needs other sources of revenue).

Ukraine has problems, yes. But Ukraine's problems are precisely what the association agreement is designed to begin solving.

Not only Ukraine. Take a look at the EU member Bulgaria to see what happen to a country which lost its principal market - Russia.

Bulgaria industry collapsed, Bulgaria being a leading agricultural supplier to the former USSR now imports veggies from Turkey and 22% of the Bulgarians die out or emigrate (the Bulgaria population decreased from 9 million to 7 million).

The same trend was observed during the corrupt rule of the US-installed orange mafia in Ukraine who confronted Russia and lost the Russia market - the Ukraine industrial production collapsed by 21% and the Ukraine GDP fall by 15.1% - worst performer not only in Europe but also amongst the CIS economies. Destitute ukrainians run in droves out of the orange "paradise" to clean toilets abroad in order to be able to feed their starving families left to the mercy of the orange mafia. Ukraine at the time become famous cheap sex tourism destination and even Mew Zealand magazine offer a trip to Ukraine for its readers to get a "cheap bride".

The association with the EU will bring Ukraine to worse - not only that the EU regulations will limit boarder crossings and trade with non-EU countries what means Russia will completely legally will stop imports from Ukraine, but also this EU regulations will hit hard the Ukraine industry and agriculture.

Expect HUGE emigration from Ukraine in five years past signing the accord. Ukraine already lost 5 million since their "independence" mostly during the orange mafia rule, so another 5 millions are on line to kick the polacks out of the lucrative janitor jobs in Germany. LOL :D

Oh and besides Russia is not interested in the BROKE & SINKING EU - there is a new union developing with China and Turkey, Turkey joined as observer the ANTI-NATzO SCO recently while China took over the Turkmenistan gas production and kill the NABUCCO, leaving the whinny EU dependent on the good GAZPROM graces :D

"Not only Ukraine. Take a look at the EU member Bulgaria to see what happen to a country which lost its principal market - Russia."
You know what? Your rant about Russia's indispensability to Ukraine and the EU triggers a response with a popular joke.
"On a city bus, a drunken male passenger started teasing a woman sitting next to him by repeatedly telling her that she was ugly. She eventually fired back and shouted: But you're stoned!
Well, ma'am - answered the man quietly - but I'll be sober tomorrow morning"

“But Ukraine's problems are precisely what the association agreement is designed to begin solving. Ukraine has phenomenal potential in aerospace, nuclear engineering, etc. etc.”

I do not want to wake you from your dreamer’s trance but you did not touched the main Ukraine’s and for that matter Poland’s problem which is defined by these words venality, attitude, maturity, tradition.

Ukraine first has to reach the Greece’s level and do you realize where Greece is on the EU scale.
Do not count on some grades skipping because it will not happen.